Well my summer vacation keeps getting better. This weekend Dad, Cousin Bruce and I went camping an hour away from the ranch. I really like camping because I get to sit around the fire listening to Dad tell stories about his "wild" youth and then hear Cousin Bruce compare those stories with his own. Sometimes it seems like they forget that I am sitting there, but its ok because then they say things that Grandpa would yell at them for saying in front of me. Dad told a story about how he and some friends ran across his college campus naked and one of his friends got caught climbing up the field goal posts while the security guards tried to get him down by shaking it. Dad and the rest of his friends took Scott's (I think that was his name) clothes and ran back to their rooms. I guess Scott came down eventually and was put on "probation" (More on that word later). Cousin Bruce then told a story about how him and his friends went on a trip to Mexico and then he stopped and looked at me and said that they had a great time scuba diving and saw lots of colorful fish. Then Dad said that it was ok that I am getting old enough to hear real stories about "what men do at night in strange places". Cousin Bruce then was a little quiet but talked about how he met a girl there named Nidia and how he fell in love with her, but that she didn't speak english and all they could do was look into each others eyes and try to speak what little of each others language they knew. Cousin Bruce knew only one sentence from a song and repeated it over and over to Nidia "Tu eres la luz de mi vida". I said very excitedly that I knew what that meant from my spanish class because our teacher read a story to us about a boy and a girl who fall in love at the beach. It seemed like Cousin Bruce wanted to say more about it, but could only say that his friends teased him the whole ride home to college. He seemed to be thinking about Nidia even into the next day because he told me as we were fishing at a pond near the campground that he went to Mexico expecting to have lots of fun with his friends and that they were going to drink lots of beer and see lots of girls taking their clothes off, which he said they did, but the thing he always remembers more than any of that was his brief time with Nidia and how he will always be able to hear her voice and smell her "sweet breathe". I said that I hope I meet a girl like that and Cousin Bruce said that he is sure I will someday. I then said that if I go to Mexico that I will be prepared because I am learning spanish in school. Cousin Bruce said that sometimes people who like each other a lot speak a whole different language than Spanish and English. I then said to him "Like French" and he just smiled as big as I've ever seen him smile and said "yeah something like that".
Todays word is "probation" which means "the process or period of testing or observing the character or abilities of a person in a certain role, for example, a new employee." An example of is use is "for an initial period of probation, your manager will closely monitor your progress." That only made me wonder who my "manager" is. Dad said earlier today when I asked him that "your manager is me, your mother, your grandfather, and all your teachers". I said that I have a lot of managers to monitor me and he said that I was lucky and that some kids don't have more than one or two and that some don't have any at all. I was sad to hear that, but I guess it did make me feel pretty lucky.

My Mothers name is Jane and people often call her "Lady Jane". She is a very nice Mom and always gets me things when it isn't my birthday. She can cook really well, but she also can take care of the horses and animals better than anyone. The horses seem to prefer it when Mom feeds and combs them. When we went to Missouri Mom had to stay behind to make sure everything got done well. We have people who come to help clean out the stables and to mow the front lawn, but Mom doesn't like to leave for too long because she wants to be sure things are done right, especially regarding the horses. Her favorite horse is called Jezebel and "she runs like the wind" says Mom. She gets up almost every morning to ride her except sometimes on sundays because of church. Mom told me that when she was a girl that she never really liked horses and always hated cleaning them and taking care of them which was very surprising for me to hear. She says that she was more of a "tomboy" and liked to play baseball and go bike riding with her friends. When Mom and Dad moved to the ranch before I was born, Mom didn't really care for the horses even then. I asked Dad what he thought about that and he said it was fine that he was sure that "she would naturally grow to love them as all city people who move to the country do". Mom said that it was a palomino named "Sam" that started her love for horses and Jezebel "finished the deal".
Mom now spends her time taking care of the horses and me and is also very involved with her many projects to help people "who grew up like me without much" as she says. She also has recently learned how to make ceramic objects that sometimes are useful and sometimes not. While we were gone she made a ceramic fish that is really beautiful and somehow always looks wet. She gave it to me to put on my bookshelf in my room. On the bottom it says "to my boy, don't ever stop swimming, love, Mom". I was unable to say anything and the room went quiet when Grandpa muttered "what the heck does that mean?" We all just looked at him and Dad without looking away from grandpa said "Jem, get grandpa his pills."
In honor of Mom, today's word is "ceramic" and it means "made of clay and hardened by heat", "from Greek keramikos". I read that to Mom and she said "sounds like a family trait to me".
Once again the boy is confused.

This is a picture that Uncle Don lent me to put on my blog site. It is an old picture of him from 1975 that was in the local newspaper in his hometown in Missouri. Like Grandpa, Uncle Don wants to be remembered for how he looked when he was young. This picture was in the paper because Uncle Don had just graduated from college at "the top of his class". I asked him if that meant he got better grades than anyone and he said "yes". Uncle Don said that this picture helped him meet his first wife, my Aunt Brenda, Cousin Bruce's mom. She recognized him from the paper when he was walking through town and they started to date each other and then got married one year later. Uncle Don is well known for his walks around town as he likes "to get his news through first-hand experience". I asked him what he meant exactly and he said that he doesn't trust the local news, but instead would rather talk to people in the town to find out what is happening. People in town have nicknamed him "the mayor" because he likes to chat with people even though some people say that he is not always in a "pleasant" mood. I asked him if the real mayor does that and he said "only around election time".
Uncle Don is Grandpas oldest son and is older than his sister, my Aunt Shelley. My Dad is the youngest of the 3 children from my Grandpa and Grandma and he has wondered why he was named Jem Bigsky II and not my uncle Don. I asked Grandpa this and he said it was because Grandma didn't want to name any of the kids that name saying "it should stay in the movies", but Grandpa said that he finally convinced her right after Dad was born because they couldn't agree on anything else and "Grandma was too tired to argue".
My Dad says that people in town respect my uncle because he is the only Buckheister to return to Missouri and he is very helpful to people there. "A man should never forget where he came from" was something I overheard a man say one day at the carnival. I am not sure if he was talking about my family or not, but it was something that made me think about my uncle. My Grandpa and Uncle Don haven't always gotten along so good, but now they get along better. My Aunt Shelley rarely talks to my Grandpa or any of us really and both she and Uncle Don use the name Buckheister and both rarely come to California. Aunt Shelley lives in Washington state and as Dad says "she might as well live in Russia".

I am finally back at the ranch after a long, but very exciting trip. Like my cousin said, my Grandpa had a bad week with his back and we almost were going to stay in Missouri for another week. Luckily my Grandpa feels better and we were able to drive a long way while he took lots of pain pills. He said some very funny things on the last day of the trip (yesterday), but some of it didn't make any sense. Right now he is at the doctors with dad and they hopefully will make him feel better. Usually when he goes to the doctors he comes home feeling worse, but has more pills to take than before. Dad says that the pills just keep him well enough to make it back for his next doctor visit. I don't know about that but i am sure its just part of getting old as grandpa says.
Even with Grandpa's bad back, we had a very good time in Missouri spending time with uncle Don and his wife Beth. I also enjoyed making new friends with people like William and others who went to the carnival almost every day. Williams friends were also nice and I will miss everyone a lot. I think the best part of the week was when Grandpa and i got to throw out the first pitch at a minor league baseball game. I was a little nervous, but grandpa made me feel better by telling me to imagine I was a real pitcher and I got so excited I threw it over the catchers head and it ended up hitting the girl holding the american flag. She tried so hard to move out of the way that she ended up hitting the boy next to her and knocking him over and also dropped the flag. Everyone laughed a lot, but I was very embarrassed and decided to buy the girl a whole bunch of french fries that came in a mini batting helmet. Her name was Jody and she was also 12. I talked with her for a little while but her brother or maybe it was her boyfriend, I don't know, kept staring at me with what Mom would call "an evil eye".
Grandpas pitch bounced 3 times before it made it to the catcher and later complained that his back was hurting. My Dad warned him not to throw, but to let me do it alone, but Grandpa is very stubborn (like all Bigskys) and did it anyways. I said to Grandpa later on that both of us threw badly and he said that at least his made it to the catcher and Dad replied that it only proves that "stubborn and competitive go hand in hand". I guess maybe it wasn't the best part of the trip afterall except that everyone in town now knows me not just for being Jem Bigsky the third, but because i was the kid who hit Jody Scmidt with a baseball and made her drop the flag in the dirt. Afterwards all of Williams friends were laughing and patting me on the back because they don't like Jody very much and said that I shouldn't have bought her french fries. I guess that I am not as used to being mean as they are.
Well, I have so much to write about, but will wait till tomorrow to tell you more about my trip. Sometimes looking at the computer for too long makes my bad eye a little more blurry. I am not sure why that is but maybe I'll ask the eye doctor next time I go there. Todays word is from something that was said to me after my throw at the baseball game. A man behind the dugout yelled "lay off the steroids, kid" and then all his friends laughed loudly. So, todays word is "steroids" and it means "highly exaggerated, enhanced, or accelerated version of something". It refers to being "on steroids". I have heard it used many times, but never referring to me. Another definition in the dictionary is very long and talks about molecules and atoms, but it dosn't help me much. I will have to ask my Cousin Bruce what it is exactly because he is a yoga instructor and knows a lot about the human body, but I am not exactly sure what yoga is either.

Hello this is Cousin Bruce. The 3 Jems are currently on their way back from Missouri as of this morning and Jem III wanted me to send you all a note saying that he will be back on Thursday night. He didn't want everyone to forget about him and he cannot wait to tell everyone about his time in the "Show-me state". Unfortunately, Jem's Grandpa has had back troubles that have prevented them from leaving earlier, but he has been cleared by the doctor to travel again.
Jem also wanted me to thank Amy for her comments.

In case you haven't read the Introduction to Jem's blog....

Howdy!
Welcome to the "Stories from Lazy Eye Ranch" blog site. This site is devoted to ancestral and anecdotal stories of the Bigsky family as told by Jem Bigsky III. The Bigsky family lives and works in California and has, ever since Jerry Buckheister moved there in 1948 and became the legendary silverscreen singing cowboy, Jem Bigsky.
The stories are collected and retold to you by one imaginative and inquisitive 12 year-old boy, who is fondly referred to by his loved ones as, "The Boy", especially by his father, Jem Bigsky II. Look for his weekly entries here as well as the occasional photo of the family.

Hello from Missouri!
I met a friend named William who has a computer that he said I could use to post a message to my site. It has been a great trip so far to Grandpa's hometown and a lot of fun talking to people here. Some I remember from last year and some I didn't know yet. William is 14 and going to be starting high school. He spends a lot of time at a store in the mall that sells video games and he knows a lot about them. His favorite game is Star Wars and he just bought the Fantastic 4. He spends a lot of time playing them and talking to people on the computer. He told me about many great places to meet people on the internet from all over the world. He was talking with a girl from england for 3 hours yesterday and she really likes video games too. William says they can even play the some games together on the computer. I could not believe this, but he showed me and there was her screen name as player 2. I also learned that no one uses their own name on the computer but a made up one like Williams which is "Space Monkey 4". I thought that was cool because I like space, but I wondered why it was number 4 and William said that there are 3 others with the same name. "Wow, that is amazing" I said and wondered what my name would be if I could think of one. I asked my Dad what he thought and he said that "your name is already made up by your Grandfather". I said maybe my screen name should be "Buckheister" and he laughed.
I will tell everyone all about my time in Missouri when I get back. We are leaving on Saturday and won't be back until next week. I don't have a word for today because I don't have my dictionary, but am learning all about the shortening of words that people use on the internet like lol and btw which means "laugh out loud" and "by the way". Uncle Don says that they are called "abbreviations" and are there to save time. I told him that I know about them but that there are some on the internet that I had never seen before. Uncle Don says that computers are changing everything and that his way of talking and working will be obsolete in 10 years. I asked what obsolete meant and he just said "old and no longer useful". I told him that he should get a computer and he said something I didn't quite understand, "we are nothing but computers".

I finally remembered to get the photo of Grandpa Jem when he was a young man and am posting it today in honor of his carnival. We leave tomorrow for Missouri and his hometown. We are driving there in Dad's chevy blazer and will get there on sunday dad says. The carnival starts saturday and ends a week after sunday. Grandpa says that this may be the last time he goes so he wants to stay the whole time and see all his old friends that "can still remember who the heck I am". I said that last year a lot of people remembered him and he said that hopefully he'll remember them. I laughed, but was a little embarrassed that I was laughing. He said that its ok because losing your memory isn't all bad. I was kind of surprised about this but didn't ask why. Maybe someday I will know what he's talking about.
I am bringing my writing journal and will write all about our trip so that I can post it when I get home. Although when I asked Dad if Uncle Don has a computer at his house, he said "I am not even sure he has a microwave yet". Uncle Don is kind of old-fashioned but Dad says he is a very honest man and a very good accountant. Cousin Bruce, Uncle Don's son, says that his Dad "squeezes the nickel so hard the buffalo poops". I looked and there is no buffalo on the nickel. He also says that he is also stubborn, "like all Buckheisters". That is today's word, "stubborn". It means "having or showing dogged determination not to change one's attitude or position on something, esp. in spite of good arguments or reasons to do so". A use of it is "he was stubborn in his refusal to eat vegetables". Now I know what cousin Bruce means.
I have to go pack my clothes before Mom gets a hold of them and makes me bring clothes that I don't like. By the way, the horse in the picture is Hank and not Ferdinand. Hank was Grandpa's favorite.